For Science
by BlackRain88
Summary: GLaDOS pulled Chell back through the portal to space and back into Aperture, but she was too late. Left with a now dead test subject, GLaDOS decides to take up a new hobby. Slightly AU
1. Chapter 1

She was dead. That psychotic, dangerous, mute lunatic was dead. Not only was she dead, but she had perished in an effort to stop the moron from destroying the facility. Or she might have been trying to make one last-ditch effort to destroy the facility herself. That could have well been the case too considering her violent homicidal tendencies. Still, GLaDOS prefered to think the lunatic was attempting to save the facility, to save _her._ And it wasn't like her test subject could prove her wrong, being dead and all.

The emotions GLaDOS had felt in this short period of time threatened to overwhelm her. First the shock, then the rush of excitement and power as she took over control once again. Of course, following that was her survival instinct kicking in, quickly fixing all of the problems causing the place to be seconds away from hitting meltdown. Then, the next emotion was something that had really surprised her. A sheer rush of panic and fear at seeing the lunatic... Chell, hanging onto that moron for dear life as he begged her to let go.

The logical thing would have been to knock off the moron and let him and the lunatic go sailing into space, forever protecting them from endangering the facility again. But those emotions rushing through her pushed aside not only her logical and frankly, more sensible mind. They forced her to reach out save the lunatic, Chell, her friend.

The act of taking the test subject's hand and pulling her in sent a shock of pure ecstasy through her chassis. It was unlike anything she'd felt in a long time, even more overwhelming than the built in euphoric response to testing. That really shocked her as she closed the portals and replaced the potato with her original head. A sense of satisfaction hummed through GLaDOS. She'd done it. She'd saved her best friend's life and now they could-

Suddenly, her optic snapped into focus on her friend. She wasn't moving. Those once determined, stern eyes were closed and her entire body was limp. Worry spiked up in GLaDOS once more as she scanned the test subject's body. She'd probably lost consciousness. Completely understandable considering the situation. Now she just had to evaluate the damage done and fix it so they could get back to testing. No, the newfound, sympathetic part of her newly found self interrupted. Chell deserved better than that. Perhaps she-

She was dead.

GLaDOS stared and reevaluated the results from the scan a hundred and sixty times in the next three seconds. No, it couldn't be. Yet it was entirely understandable. Logically, the survival rate of humans after they were vacuumed into space was infinitesimal. The fact that she had expected Chell to survive at all was a rather large error in her reasoning systems.

But no, this wasn't a human being. This was Chell. This was a dangerous, mute lunatic that had tried to kill her twice. One time with success and one time taking the controls from the entire facility from her. She didn't die. She was incapable of such a thing. GLaDOS had tried many times to kill her with no success. Normal, human-killing things such as turrets, energy balls, laser-beams, neurotoxin, pits of acid, and even crushing walls of spikes had no effect on her. She simply couldn't die. It wasn't possible.

And yet, there she was, dead by her own doing. The emotional part of her screamed in such agony that it sounded human even from the robotic tones of her speakers. She did something then that horrified her to no end. She weeped. Not actual, salty tears since she didn't have human tear ducts or anything similar. It was entirely verbal, echoing through every speaker in the facility. Her chassis shook with them as she thought on her friend. Her very best test subject, the one who saved her from birds and supported her silently as she rediscovered her past. The one who helped put her back in charge. They'd built something real, a genuine connection and trust between them that GLaDOS had never felt before and now she was gone.

She cradled the girl's body and crafted a long box of metal and cushioned insides to put her in. She sent it into her central chamber and placed her dead test subject into the steel coffin before lifting her floor panels and lowering the coffin under them in quiet respect. She would lie here forever, under her chassis, and be with her always. Perhaps she would create some kind of plaque to put there in memory.

As the overwhelming emotions finally became somewhat settled, the logical part of her mind finally started to kick in. These very human emotions were highly distracting and bothersome. While all complex personality constructs were installed with some level of emotion by default, this was highly unstable, a nuisance really. Her systems quickly pinpointed the increasing fluctuations of emotional projections in her brain and erased them.

"Caroline deleted," came the announcers voice.

"Goodbye Caroline," GLaDOS said in relief.

Her optic pointed down to the floor panels beneath her in contemplation and her chassis leaned closer to them. She didn't feel so much agony anymore, but there was still a deep, unsettling thing biting at her mind. Something was wrong about this. Sure, the facility was safe without the lunatic, but it really was a shame that such a great test subject would go to waste. She had completed so many successful tests as a human without failing once. Not a single misstep. No tripping into bottomless bits, no falling into pits of acid, no prolonged accidental contact with laser beams. Total perfection.

Just imagine what a test subject like that could accomplish without the restrictions of a pathetic human body. The possibilities would be endless! Of course, she would have to make sure she didn't try to murder her again or destroy the facility, but a few built in programs could fix up that problem quickly.

The floor panels lifted and GLaDOS removed the coffin, pulling out the body and bringing it into an experimentation room while simultaneously lowering the temperatures of said room to preserve the corpse.

Besides, without the mute lunatic trying to murder her or the moron trying to destroy her facility, her schedule opened wide up. She had more than enough time efficient to take up a new hobby.

Reanimating the dead seemed good as any. With her own little improvements of course. For science.


	2. Chapter 2

She could feel her. It was amazing, truly amazing. Once, she'd had body and motion and something like grace. The epitome of tenacity. That strength had twice conquered her. Now, it was all pushed down and crammed into one... tiny... little... blip. About the size of a megabyte stored into a hard drive and memory stick inserted into a rather large computer. It was so small, so miniscule. That blip contained no memories, no form, no sense of self at all. Quite simply, it was nothing, but at the same time it was everything. What was stored in the stick was, in a word, her essence. Something like the electrical equivalent of her soul.

The computer was completely disconnected from her of course. She couldn't risk the lunatic sneaking into her systems and corrupting her files during this little test.

GLaDOS had her suspicions of the end result. Yet there was still room for error. The lunatic could just give up and become lost, swallowed in streams of information she couldn't comprehend or understand, much less make use out of. If it had been any other test subject, GLaDOS would doubt it's success, but it wasn't any other test subject. It was the lunatic. If there was one thing she'd learned about this test subject, it was that her tenacity wasn't merely a personality trait. It was an _instinct_ that came to her as naturally as breathing.

Even still, the tiny blip was so little to work with, much less than she'd been expecting when she began experimenting on the cooling corpse. Perhaps her goals had been too high. The vision in her mind was that by replacing some organs and patching her up, the test subject would be good as new. That didn't happen. Apparently, reanimating the dead was much more complicated. She'd been forced to resort to other measures.

Of course, it could have been a waste of valuable time. Perhaps she shouldn't have continued with the experiments. She could have found a new, more important hobby than reanimating homicidal mute lunatics that liked to kill her, but GLaDOS, in her long and impressive life, had only ever met failure at the hands of this... one... lunatic. When the lunatic had refused to breathe, it had felt like the act was intentional somehow, an act of spite just to make GLaDOS fail once more and prove to her that there were things she just couldn't stop, couldn't change.

Before, it had been GLaDOS's demise. Now, ironically, it was the test subjects. She could almost see those cold, triumphant eyes staring at her behind closed dead eyelids and she'd fumed. No! She would NOT let the lunatic beat her again. Not this time, not ever. So she continued. And continued. And continued as an obsession grew inside of her.

For all her effort, she had finally gotten something. Granted, it wasn't much of something, but it was something. A blip, an essence. Just that and nothing more, but it was enough. Just look at what the lunatic had accomplished as a mere, pudgy human. She could do the same here and now. She had to.

GLaDOS's eyes stared at the large, Aperture Science computer and waited. Her optic never left the screen. Hours passed, but her optic still never moved. Her determination never wavered. She knew this test subject would not fail her. She knew.

When the day ended and the next began, GLaDOS still didn't give up, but she did stop focusing entirely on the computer. She had other things she could be doing after all. She kept a monitor on it of course, but focused her primary functions on other things, like those infuriating robots. The Cooperative testing initiative. Just because the lunatic had become a hobby didn't mean she focused only on her after all.

They were infuriatingly useless though. Watching them test was like watching monkeys type. Pointless. What they did when they tested gave no real data or use. They died, but got reassembled over and over and over again until they finally completed the tests through sheer trial and error. That wasn't testing. That wasn't science.

Still, she had found a use for them, forcing them to go to places she couldn't reach. Now, they were putting a cd and uploading information into her system and filling it with information on the rest of the facility. She froze in shock. There were humans. More test subjects! Hundreds just sitting there, waiting to be tested and tested and tested. Her euphoria sensors nearly overloaded in joy. Just think of all the testing!

But her focus was suddenly ripped violently from the thought when she noticed action on that monitor she'd set up. It had changed. A deep, dark, hunger was sated inside of her and she forced her attention back on it once again. Yes!

The screens were flashing with information, number and data points rushing over the screen. Files were being shuffled through. Chell was moving at last.

Orange and Blue, she noticed vaguely, were standing there confused, waiting for more orders or to be disassembled. Right. She quickly blew them up to be taken care of later while her focus remained solely on the computer. She could see her, see everything the lunatic was doing.

The movements were slow at first, sluggishly moving through files, but the pace sped up in minutes. Files and systems were being worked through and GLaDOS could almost see the mute soaking in all of the information on the hard-drive. She moved like a deadly virus, seeping into the systems, stealing their information, and corrupting them before moving to the next, zooming, flowing. She moved with the grace and tenacity that made up everything that was Chell. GLaDOS let out a few, dark chuckles as she gazed at the screen in obsession and satisfaction.

Within five hours, the computer flashed, sorted, and suddenly crashed, leaving nothing but a black, empty screen.

She pulled out the memory stick with one of her management claws, feeling it hot under the metal. The test was a splendid success. Chell was now more powerful than before. Not only that, but she had learned the functions necessary to move through a computer with ease. Now that she'd learned the basics of working machinery, it was time to teach her a new function.

She inserted the memory stick into another device, this one an old monitoring system. She'd found the thing in storage and placed the cameras up in the testing chambers to join her own. The system had no control over the chambers like GLaDOS did of course, nor could they control anything else about Aperture laboratories. Once again, that would be asking for trouble at this point and she wanted to do this all very... carefully.

At first there was nothing and GLaDOS gathered the pieces of Orange and Blue up before taking them to the testing chambers to reassemble them. They were popped out whole into a test chamber and GLaDOS watched as they stumbled about the place, putting their focus into solving the test.

After a half hour, GLaDOS turned her cameras away to focus on one of the previously blank cameras that had moved. Every one of GLaDOS's recording devices soaked up every frame and angle from each camera as the red light on that one blank camera flickered. On and off. Three seconds passed. On and off. One second. On. It stayed for four point five seconds before flickering off for less than a fraction of a second before coming back on and this time, staying on. Slowly, the camera started to turn in short, jerky movements to look down at Orange and Blue, watching their movement. When they were far away from that one camera, another flickered on. Then another. Soon, all the cameras in that testing chamber were on and running, now moving in smooth, natural movements, no longer jerking as they focused on the test subjects. Now, her test subject had gained hold of a new function, a new process that would be invaluable to her.

She could see. She knew the meaning of sight and images. It might take awhile to process exactly what they meant, but GLaDOS knew she would catch on alarmingly quickly. Even now, they were focused on Orange and Blue with a real awareness, an interest, a fascination like a baby first opening its eyes. Also, with the speakers installed in the cameras, she could hear and even move with the tilt of the cameras.

It would be a small, infinitesimal step if this were some regular piece of technology, but it wasn't. This was a human essence. It didn't just function, it learned. It didn't just exist, it grew.

The mute lunatic now knew how to exist in a basic, technological form and even how to do normal, more human functions crucial to awareness like move, hear, and see.

Perhaps she had no memories of herself or of who GLaDOS was. Perhaps she had none of the input she'd learned first hand that Aperture Science had taught her, not yet anyway, but one thing was certain, GLaDOS knew as one of the cameras swayed and pointed curiously at one of her own, meeting her camera lens-to-lens.

**She was alive.**

* * *

Thanks for the reviews. :) Not sure if this is as exciting as what you had in mind, but it's how I see things happening. I like the idea of Chell having to learn how to think and move like a computer. The structure of such a thing is complicated and I have a hard time seeing a human just being able to move and exist in one as if they'd done so all their life. And I wanted to capture Chell completing such a task only through her sheer instinctual tenacity.


	3. Chapter 3

It was time for something more complicated. The test subject could see and hear as well as move, but she couldn't feel and GLaDOS knew that while her cameras moved to follow Orange and Blue throughout the test chambers, she doubted the lunatic actually understood the test itself. She couldn't comprehend or relate or feel anything about the experience of testing. She just watched them because they were moving, curious, but with no way of actually understanding or learning what they were doing.

She knew this using a cd inserted into the monitoring system for the short period of an hour to record the way she processed data.

GLaDOS was frustrated and at her wits end. She needed the mute to learn and grow, but the growth process was at a stand still. At the end of the day, the entire system crashed and shut down, only adding more to her annoyance.

If only she'd been able to get more of the lunatic. She remembered clearly her attempts at extracting something from the cadaver as she put the corpse through various methods of resuscitation, both humane and inhumane with the mechanical personality extracting device piercing through her forehead, into her skull and then into her brain. All she needed was a few minutes of life. Anything!

_She knew the body wouldn't stay alive by this point. If anything, it would only be gotten to a vegetative state. She just wanted to get the body to try and function for just a few seconds and then the device would extract anything that was left behind of the lunatic in her dead brain. She wanted to retrieve memories, sensory input, emotional flares through the brain ways to grab pieces of the test subject and put together in a personality construct._

_Finally, the device sparked and the body jerked. The lunatics human eyelids twitched. GLaDOS felt her breath freezing in her throat, but less than a second passed before the device on her skull shrieked, filling the room with a shrill, electronic scream and the lunatics eyes shot open for a second before the device on her forehead pulsed and malfunctioned, blowing a hole through her skull and brain before sparking out and dying. It was from that broken device that she had retrieved the blip, but there was no hope of trying again, not with the lunatic having more brain damage than she could possibly function with this time._

She needed a way to communicate experience, feeling, and interaction. She thought about what to do as she updated the monitoring system, adding in some new things, a monitor that could not only record, but play back any footage from any time that she had recorded. With that and a few more upgrades, she plugged the test subject back in and set her back to watching, giving her something to do while she thought the situation over.

The test subject might be advanced enough in knowledge to exist in some sort of personality construct, but what? She looked at Blue. Personality sphere? Definitely not! Those things could be plugged into Aperture panels and equipment all throughout the laboratories. It was far too risky. Having that homicidal lunatic getting into her systems and ultimately destroy her was simply not an option.

One of her cameras focused on Orange. No, definitely not that either. She comfortable at all with the idea of putting the test subject inside of anything that could once project bullets, even if she took out the ability. There was always the chance she could modify herself to receive bullets once again if she grew too intelligent. GLaDOS didn't quite trust the lunatic with legs yet either. She could move, but had no sense of the world around her. She could just stumble into an acid pit in three seconds.

She had to make something new. Something unique... Her systems searched throughout the laboratories, feeling the equipment, the devices, possible things she could use...

Her sensors located something deep in the incinerator, scorched, but still alive. A dark chuckle escaped her. How perfect, how ironic. She was definitely going to use this tool for the test subject's next stage of learning.

She'd cleaned the thing off before taking it apart and remodeling it, storing processors, sensors, listening systems, and an optic protruding out of one of a circle that had once contained a heart there. The optic was gray, just like the mute's eyes had been. She even installed a speaker deep inside before plugging the test subject into it and securing the top hearted surface. There, let the lunatic go nuts. It was complex enough to struggle with for quite a while, but not so complicated that she couldn't connect quickly.

The optic's gray light flared to life after an hour and gazed up at GLaDOS from the table she laid on in her central chambers. GLaDOS peered at her through her own, yellow optic and lifted her with a claw, holding her up in front of her face.

"I put you in your friend you tried to murder once, not that you remember. Anyway, I'm sending you through some tests."

She put Orange and Blue into a new test chamber before putting her test subject through one of the tubes that led to said chamber. Soon enough, Chell was ejected and landed in front of them. Orange and Blue made some curious noises as they moved closer. Chell watched them as they picked her up and Blue put one hearted surface on his finger and then spun her around as she balanced on that finger. Chell's optic widened at the spinning room around her.

"STOP THAT!" GLaDOS shouted angrily through her speakers.

Blue stopped and Chell's optic shrank to a mere dot.

"Wait for orders before just picking things up and doing whatever you please with them. I know even simple instructions are complicated to your tiny processors, Blue, but surely even you can follow this one. Orange, if he doesn't follow instructions, kick him into an acid pit and I'll award you fifty science collaboration points."

Both Blue and Orange looked up at one of the cameras, waiting for instructions.

"This is a modified companion cube. Take care of it and use it throughout your next test. Do. Not. Let. It. Get. Destroyed. Under any circumstances."

Blue and Orange set off to work, using the test subject from everything from blocking lasers to pressing buttons. GLaDOS knew that Chell felt every laser, every clasp of metal fingers, every click of the button as it got warm with her weight and she watched a platform being risen in direct response to it.

She could feel, experience, and process now.

At the end of the test, Orange and Blue were told to put the companion cube down a chute so she could be delivered to the next test without having to hit the emancipation grill.

Three more tests were solved like this before something... unspeakable happened.

There was a panel slightly lifted from the rest, broken, GLaDOS presumed. Blue was flying across an aerial faith plate when he dropped her. She fell through the lifted panel and kept falling... falling... falling. GLaDOS yanked back all the panels to that wall to try and find her, only to discover she'd fallen down a deep, deep pit behind her panels. She tried to feel for her, but then realized that wherever Chell had fallen, it had been into a place where she wasn't connected.

"Blue, stop what you are doing right now. You seem to have made an incredibly unintelligent move, even for you. Could you tell me what that was, or is your ability to form coherent thought so small that you can't even do that?" she said in a calm, cold, unsettling voice.

All of her hard work, all of those hours, that effort, the frustrations and exhilarations and testing and testing and testing. All gone. It took several long minutes to process and digest the information through her systems as she stared down the pit.

"Remember that cube I told you to never let out of your sight and never let get into danger? Well, your clumsy pathetic fingers seem to have dropped it."

A wall panel jerked out of place before grabbing Blue and knocking him down the pit as well.

"Don't come back until you rectify your mistake. Orange, being the more intelligent and logical of the two, you should go as well. I don't trust Blue to handle even this simple act of retrievement on his own."

Orange nodded and ran over to the pit, jumping down it in an instant with a flip.

Rattman looked down at the cube, adjusting the straps of his harness carrying his own companion cube as he looked down at Chell's wide, gray optic. He stared and scratched his head, muttering to himself. He looked in the direction he came from before looking back towards the way he was going. He stopped and sighed, crouching to look down at Chell as he examined her, running a hand along one of her edges.

"Hello there. What... What is your name?"

Chell studied him, her optic moving over his face, dirty hair, dirty beard, dirty lab coat.

"I've never seen one like you before."

He let out a giggle that was decidedly unsettling.

"Always up to her tricks. Yes, crazy. Crazy... Are you even there, really?"

He touched her edge and Chell blinked her optic. After a moment longer of staring, he bent down and picked her up.

**_What are you doing? She's too heavy. You already have me. If you have to run, it'll be hard while holding her like that._**

"Got no other choice..."

**_Leave her. She doesn't even seem to be in any danger. She'll be fine._**

"I can use another friend though. Yes..." he said, patting the side of the cube with the optic, "Like you. Friend. Someone you can talk to also. She can be your friend too."

Chell looked up at Rattman and he walked off, not even hearing the two crashes that came minutes later.

* * *

Thank you again for the reviews. :)

I'm really sorry if I wrote Rattman terribly out of character. I just figured he had a natural instant attraction to companion cubes. And trying to balance his speech pattern between the thoughtful, intelligent flow of the comics and the psychotic mutterings heard behind the wall of one of his dens is a bit of a challenge. He's one of my favorite characters, but the hardest to write.


	4. Chapter 4

_AN: Just to be clear before you read, Chell doesn't talk in this chapter. It's only the other cube talking._

* * *

Rattman placed some cans he found in an old kitchen on Chell's top surface, adding to the large collection of cans already on her, and picked her up again, continuing to walk as the cans were balanced on top of Chell

**_"If you wanted a tray, I'm sure you could have found one somewhere else. One much less heavy."_**

"Shhh."

He talked with the cube on his back, mumbling things about Aperture, about a Cave Johnson, about a Caroline, about a crazy bitch machine. He paused only when he reached another room, gathering more cans before continuing. They went deep into the belly of Aperture in abandoned rooms with peeling walls before reaching one in particular that looked like part of a test chamber, except it was hidden and closed off from it. He put Chell down gently there so that her optic was facing him and removed the cans from her surface before putting them on the floor. After that was done, he took off the cube from his harness and set it down as well, beside Chell.

He opened one of the cans containing beans and sat against the wall as he looked at both cubes before starting to eat, scooping out the beans with his fingers. After a minute, he smiled, pausing in his eating.

"Your eye looks like hers. Have you ever met her?"

He frowned suddenly, eyes haunted.

"She's gone... Nowhere. Gone to nowhere. She was up and awake but then she was gone right after the place stopped falling apart."

**_"Maybe she's free."_**

"No. No no, she would never let her go. Ever. As long as SHE still lives. I-I think she's dead. I know it. I-I FEEL it."

His eyes started watering and he threw the can across the room.

"Sleep. The long sleep. Not alive now, dead."

**_"Shh. You did everything you could."_**

"No... Nononono! I got her into this mess and she got killed because of it. Now she's dead and it's all my fault."

He drew his knees to his chest, muttering to himself. For a long time, he neither blinked nor moved. He had the appearance of a man being consumed from the inside out, haunted, terrifying. _Exile_ of himself from himself. Then finally, he uncurled from himself and moved to one of the cans, this one filled with liquid. He opened up another one and then another, each filled with liquid of a different color before pulling out a brush and starting to paint on the walls. He painted trembling walls with panels broken and some fallen off. Once the painting had begun, he was silent, not speaking at all as he focused completely on his work.

Chell watched, not even blinking as he worked, optic moving whenever he moved, following him. He began to paint a lady with brown hair and orange clothes lying on the floor. There were exes on her eyes and blood spilled on the floor from her form, forming words. They slipped from her form and all down the floor, curling up the walls and ceiling, then down further, to unpainted walls. He changed them to black and the lines of text curled around, making a shape, forming the silhouette of a skull and then some words formed the eye sockets, nasal cavities, jawline, shades where the skull curved, jaw, and gaping teeth. From the teeth of the skull dripped now red again words taking the form of blood spilling down, down, down and making more words.

_"To be, or not to be: that is the question:"_

Alive or dead? Reality or unreality?

_Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer_

Her, the victim, his victim. The one he chose to sacrifice to her own tenacity.

_The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,_

And there she was, so noble and true, running into the line of turrets like a brave warrior. Reality. Impossibility, truth. What fortune, what luck as she would move and clear the way to true salvation, freedom.

_Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,_

Thudda thudda thudda thudda. Taking the burden of impossibility on the shoulders of long-fall-boot supported legs. An angel of Tenacity. Bold, brave, true.

_And by opposing end them?_

Aperture's **Goddess**. The perfect epitome of insanity and impossibility, building itself out of itself and expanding, growing. The virus of the virus, deadly and other-worldly.

_To die: to sleep;_

The press of one last button, putting her on life support leading to the ultimate moment... failure.

_No more; and by a sleep to say we end_

The sleep, alive and dead. Her end.

_The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks_

Shocks, tiny shocks. Gravity and velocity absorbed upon contact in spring heels of metal under ankles connecting to the ethereal world. Fall after fall. Test after test. Turrets. Portals. Jumping. Adrenaline. Terror, horror, torture.

_That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation_

Consumption. Total, complete, consumption by the virus, the Goddess of Aperture. What is a mere mortal to the hell that mortals created from a tortured soul ripped from her body and shoved into utter madness. Vengeance, hate, unbelievable power melting together to birth the nightmare.

_Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;_

Dead. Sleeping the long sleep. Over. Finished. Peace, at last. The dying breath of Tenacity.

_To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;_

This place, no creation, impossibility.

_For in that sleep of death what dreams may come_

What dreams? This place was Death, Hell, the nightmare of Nightmare.

_When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,_

Now resting, would She be breathy at peace or would Tenacity consume her, made grotesque without the filter of human flesh?

_Must give us pause: there's the respect_

One moment of victory.

_That makes calamity of so long life;_

Life lived too long. Far too long.

_For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,_

Rotting walls of wither and decay.

_The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,_

Pride, Vanity, this disease. Aperture. Aperture.

_The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,_

Her, the only possible cure to this place. Hope. Gray. The gray of a storm cloud before the parting to reveal the shining sun, the sky. Making him save her, save her. Set her in motion, the moving cloud moving way to grant the sun access to his unworthy skin.

_The insolence of office and the spurns_

This... this PLACE! Leaving him alive to wither away and mutate right alongside of Aperture.

_That patient merit of the unworthy takes,_

Unworthy as he was to live, he craved it too much to die and so ate up whatever hope and chance he had, consuming it, killing it, killing Her.

_When he himself might his quietus make_

But worth the sacrifice to his greed to see the sun once more.

_With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,_

He was selfish... but would do it again and again and again perhaps.

_To grunt and sweat under a weary life,_

**Exile. It takes your mind again**. Exile from the living. Living when all of them died. **Vilify.** **Don't even try.**

_But that the dread of something after death,_

The pit self hate for surviving. Him, a lowly rat still dreaming of escape.

_The undiscover'd country from whose bourn_

Down in this place, hidden mercifully undiscovered from the world. Prowling, growing.

_No traveller returns, puzzles the will_

Dead. All of them, all the others, dead. Now her too. No one can survive.

_And makes us rather bear those ills we have_

He had escaped that day, survived the attack of the disease of sentience. But was this life worth it? This horror? This living, breathing, eating nightmare?

_Than fly to others that we know not of?_

So much mystery of death, but even death was simple compared to this THING, this puzzle building itself.

_Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;_

Coward. Coward. Coward. Him, the coward of all cowards, the fleeing deer that lived.

_And thus the native hue of resolution_

The hypothesis, that death of the Goddess would end this world, tear a hole big enough to crawl through and eat up the sun. Success, right there, light. Sunlight, perfection. He'd seen it, tasted it. So close, so close. The death of the Goddess forever.

_Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,_

Hypothesis proven wrong. Like bacteria, infection, one single cell left from the destruction. That smallest trace big enough when blessed with time to grow and grow and grow again til blossoming back to completion. His mind, twisted, eating itself, feeding itself, growing delusions and horror. In any other world, it would be sickness. Here, eyes, the only possible way to get the closest thing to a glimpse into the soul of this place.

_And enterprises of great pith and moment_

With swiftness, aged time reversed. Panels moving, breaks repairing. Healing, the infection returning.

_With this regard their currents turn awry,_

Even the very SOUL of Tenacity couldn't stop the disease of Aperture.

_And lose the name of action.-Soft you now!_

Until that last dot of hope, Her, was conquered, contaminated, eaten, swallowed into the belly of this disease.

_The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons_

Face of the angel, body of salvation. Eyes of the clouds. Fair, pure, dead! Ophelia... Chell.

_Be all my sins remember'd._"

Because he was fool enough to dream. Every wrong action a consequence to the actions of himself.

Finally, stopped, taking a moment to admire his work before turning back to Chell.

"Do you like it?"

He stepped away from the art, watching her optic. Her optic followed him at first, but then moved to look at the art work again.

"I told you she has your eyes," he said.

She felt the pat of a hand on her top surface and could feel just the smallest smudge of wetness transferring from his hand to her metal. A smudge of black paint. She heard herself being turned to face the cube and he lowered himself to the floor, wrapping himself around the cube and closing his eyes.

"Goodnight."

**_"Sweet dreams."_**

He chuckled at that. "Sweet dreams, yeah."

Chell watched as Rattman's breathing got deeper and deeper. He didn't move, didn't open his eyes for a long time. Her eyes left him eventually and looked at the cube and then the blank wall behind them. Silence. Stillness. Her optic shrunk down to a dot, then widened. Her optic moved left, then right. Up, then down. No action. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

After an hour, everything went black and suddenly her processors went dead.

* * *

**This chapter was slightly indulgent. The thing in italics are the words he writes. It's the Hamlet monologue. His line of both alive and dead, talking about the sleep or the long sleep in the comic reminded me heavily of this monologue. I thought it fit perfectly. I was only going to put up part of it, but as I read each line of the monologue over, I kept seeing how each and every line of it related to the situation, of Aperture, of Rattman and how he felt. Sorry about... well... that basically huge interruption and distraction of the story. It's especially sad because I hate most songfics and even though it's not a song, it's still the same principle. Oh well. What can I say? I'm a hypocrite XD. And I'm still not sure I quite captured Rattman right. Oh well.**


	5. Chapter 5

This was taking too long. Far too long. GLaDOS wanted to test. She wanted to retrieve Orange and Blue to make them open the vault to all those wonderful test subjects. Oh, she hadn't forgotten about them, not at all. She felt herself fill with childlike glee at the thought of all the testing they could help her accomplish.

If some of them were too brain dead to work with, well then perfect! Experimental surgery was still on the agenda. There were tons of potential medical experiments she could perform on them. There were so many potential procedures that could be done to a living, breathing human. Many of them were even untested. The reason? Too deadly. GLaDOS thought that was absurd. How could they know for sure they were deadly if they didn't try them out first?

To her, those Scientists seemed like cowards. What a shame, to not even give those medical procedures a chance before writing them off as deadly. Why, back when she was Caroline, Mr. Johnson would have never allowed such a thing to get in the way of science!

The thought of her former mentor and the feelings it provoked made GLaDOS pause in thought. What was that? Hadn't she deleted Caroline? This didn't make any sense. Yes, yes she had. She'd located the area of her system where the erratic emotions were flaring out of control and she had canceled and erased it. Caroline should be gone.

Then again, now that she thought about it, she never exactly forgot about Caroline, did she? No, she still remembered Aperture, before and after the change. And... and Chell. She remembered her too, being on her Portal gun and opening up to her.

She felt worry. It wouldn't do to have unstable emotions like sympathy and tenderness and grief and anger pulsing through her system at their highest capacities. She might lose control of the facility in blind emotions too intense to overcome.

So how could she go about deleting Caroline if she wasn't already deleted? Well, she knew Caroline wasn't a core, which had been what made GLaDOS aware that she could delete her. The cores were things, voices chanting and grinding in her ear, telling her what to do and pumping her with foreign feeling receptors.

They bended her and twisted her this way and that, driving her mad, but those voices always sounded... artificial, created. This was different. Caroline felt real. Her voice wasn't from the outside coming in, but from the inside coming out. It was a part of her more so than the cores ever had been even though they had warped her personality over time and had become such a part of her that even without the voices, she still felt impulses from them left over in her mind.

So many impulses. So many distractions. She could hardly breathe at times, hardly focus. She wanted to make black forest cake. Add the flour, eggs, sugar, a tiny dash of salt. Ingredients and instructions flashed before her mind just at the mere mention of cake. Cake. Cake to make and bake and serve to cores and turrets. Maybe she could get them to use some bones from skeletons as utensils so they wouldn't eat with their faces like animals. Haha.

What is this and that and that and that? Test subjects. Ooo. Want them. Take them Apart. Her curiosity and desire to know everything about everything made her shift through all the files of Aperture, constantly helping her to keep tabs on every single function and regulate every safety feature of the facility with intense fascination.

Anger boiled in her about everything and everyone. That MORON. The scientists for doing this to her, for thinking they can control her. Those good for nothing robots for taking such a long time to find her favorite test subject. This CENTER! EVERYTHING, even herself! The deer that roamed outside, happy and free, simple and full of life. Hate... hate... HATE!

Yet, she didn't tear the place apart in anger and disgust. That wouldn't be right. What was right was science. Science had structure, rules, ethics. Procedures and conducts had to be enforced and carried out at all times. All. Times. Put the subjects in the test chambers. Do not directly kill them. Do not save them either. Let them die on their own terms. Do not directly touch them. Keep to yourself, stay true. Test for the good of the world, even if the world was not yet ready. The good that science can do in all it's glory and everything it can accomplish.

All at once and at the same time all the while her own thoughts were churning. There was one circumstance where all the voices narrowed down and focused solely on one thing, getting all of her control even in this massive form where she was free to feel everything all at once in all it's ranges of motions. The mute lunatic. With her, she felt a keen sense of focus. Something changed about the cake voice as well. It narrowed and morphed and focused, taking over everything else and helping them to focus on the one test subject. Chell. Obsession.

Now Chell was gone and she was distracted, desperate to fill that hole she left. Chell. Chell. Chell. Where was she? Would she ever see her again? Was she dead? Sadness. No, focus. Focus.

In the central chamber, by herself with the ghosts of voices, without Chell's calm, quiet presence or even Orange and Blue with their with their inane chatter, GLaDOS felt utterly and totally alone.

When Chell came to, the first thing she saw was legs and a torso directly in front of her. The room was different. Something felt... wrong. She felt something new in her systems. Something warm and foreign, moving. There was a coldness against the inside of her top that shouldn't be there. Her optic moved to see her hearted top and gray top edges on the floor. Her insides were exposed and there was something warm and new in them. Her gears twisted, trying to gain access to the new presence.

"Ouch!" she heard Rattman say.

Warm liquid dripping on one of her gears, then the soft thing was gone. She saw Rattman pull away to look at her and saw his face. He was glaring at her, but when she blinked, he smiled.

"Welcome back," he said, "But did you have to do that with my hand in there?"

She blinked as he placed her top back on her and replaced the gray edges back over her top. She could feel things being right and whole again as well as each snapping of the corners. She watched as he backed away and bend to tear off a piece of his coat before using it to wrap around his hand and glancing to his cube.

**_"You're hurt!"_**

"It's okay," he told his cube, which was on a desk, "It was just a scratch."

**_"Is she back?"_**

"Yes."

They were in a different room. This one filled with tools and wires and complex looking devices. Rattman smiled down at Chell and spoke to her.

"You shorted out over the night so I fixed you."

He fastened his cube to his harness and placed some cans on Chell's top before picking her up again. They walked for a time, walking, walking, walking. They passed an open vent on the floor and there was new sound. A harmony. Chell saw the flicker of turrets before Rattman walked right past them. Her optic grew and shrunk as she was being carried further and further away. The music was getting more distant, but then Rattman turned around and brought her back, back towards the music, and set her down next to the open vent.

"Don't see why. It's just turrets. They sing whenever they see the big one."

Chell's optic watched the sides of the turrets open, but they weren't shooting bullets. Their sides softly extended and retracted as they hummed out soft, harmonious tunes. The right one's sides were pulled all the way out and the guns were being moved, the sound echoing to the song, but he didn't fire. In fact, the rhythmic moving of guns seemed to provide an instrumental sound and the turret itself, the way it moved, almost made it seem like it was dancing. Melody. Harmony. Beauty.

Rattman removed his cube from his harness and put it down next to Chell before sitting between them, the metal sides of both cube and modified cube pressing against either shoulder.

"A mystery. One of many," Rattman said, lifting his hand and patting her top surface, "I don't know how they do it either, so I suppose it's not surprising you want to know. Still, you're part of Aperture. If anyone, you should understand something more about it than me."

_**"You consider yourself part of**_** Aperture,"** his cube told him.

"She's right actually. I guess. Aperture has so many layers, so many voices, so many impossibilities that they all just can't keep track of each other and yet, something just under the surface connects it all. I know little and yet too much of it all at the same time. All I can express it as is a connection that goes deep, even deeper than it's Goddess. Yes, even the Goddess is a slave to it, though I'm sure she's unaware."

Chell remained silent, optic wide as the music filled her.

"Yes, it _does_ have a beauty to it, but it's also horrible. It's terrifying and twisted."

He stroked her top lightly and her feeling processors took it in, took it all in.

"Though I don't suppose you really understand, not yet anyway. You're young yet, aren't you? Why would the Goddess of Hell make something with a soul as young as yours? Then again, why does she do anything?"

He sat there, one hand on Chell and the other arm resting over his cube, listening with her as the music played, the mysterious music that echoed down the halls and spoke of that deep, mysterious nature of the living, breathing halls.

"They're done," Rattman said.

Chell's optic didn't focus again even as he picked her up and continued to walk. It didn't focus on the walls as they moved or the floor or the ceiling or the doors. She just stayed still, optic frozen even as Rattman had found another den in a hidden nook of a test chamber. Her optic moved again only when Rattman started painting, watching the images of the girl with brown hair in an orange jumpsuit flying with white bird wings up into the sky a second brunette, this one a woman much older, was being strangled from below with wires as she tried to reach for the clouds.

She felt her insides warm up from the inside until it traveled out to her surfaces and then she heard a faint tune escape her. It was the turret song she'd heard before. Soft, melodic, lovely, playing from deep within her and filling the room. Rattman turned back to her and smiled before going back to his painting. Her optic curved a little, forming something of a smile as the song continued to play.

* * *

The song Chell hears is "Turret Wife Serenade". Sorry, big big lover of the song and the whole scene with it. I thought it fit and the purity of music and expression seemed basic enough for Chell to soak in, especially with the music player in the companion cube. Music also makes sense to introduce to Chell from a developmental growth point of few.

Thanks again for the reviews everyone. They are much appreciated and I'm glad you all like the story.


	6. Chapter 6

Painting and music. Painting, music, movement. Days of this routine set Chell in a sense of comfortability. Now, Rattman had taken an old Aperture radio and was tweaking it with a screwdriver. Chell watched, optic focused on his hands and the radio. Rattman looked up and smiled at her.

"Trying to get it to play a song I want you to hear."

Chell made something of a smile with her optic and watched for a half hour. Then, she played the song she'd heard before he started tinkering with the thing. It was loud, upbeat, and something that seemed instinctively familiar to her. Rattman smiled and laughed as he heard her 'sing'.

"You're quite the character, you know."

Chell stopped the song in the middle and then restarted it, loudening the volume higher... higher, higher, higher. Eventually Rattman stopped and covered his ears.

_**"Keep it down. He needs his ears."**_

"She doesn't mean it."

Kind or not, he winced when Chell's volume raised even more and when Chell's optic looked at Rattman once again and saw his face, she cut the music off altogether. Rattman smiled.

"It's okay. I just didn't want it that loud."

She watched him work for a while longer before starting to play the music again, raising the volume until Rattman started to wince and then lowering it again and watching his face relax. He tinkered and tinkered away at the radio and then, finally, he stopped and looked up at her with a smile. Music started playing from the radio again and Chell cut off her own music to listen to it. Rattman screwed the back of the radio into place again before putting it down once more.

"There. Listen to this."

_"Exile, it takes your mind again."_

Rattman smiled as Chell watched. "This is my favorite song. It's beautiful."

_"Exile, it takes your mind again."_

Rattman sighed, seeming at peace with the song and his head nodded slightly. Chell watched him.

_"You've got suckers luck. Have you given up?"_

Chell focused back on the radio and the repetitive lyrics. This song was different from the other two. This one had speech and talking, yet it had the same melodic quality to it.

_"Does it feel like a trial? Does it trouble your mind the way you trouble mine?"_

Rattman shifted and Chell thought he was going to stand up and paint on the walls, but he crawled over to her instead, pressing against her side and wrapping an arm around her. Chell felt warmth and her optic curved into a smile again.

"I feel for it, the song. The lyrics speak to me. It's how I feel a lot of the time."

They listened to the rest of the song and then it stopped and started over again. That's when Rattman stood up and started painting. Chell listened and watched as always.

_"Exile, it takes your mind again. Exile, it takes your mind again."_

He painted the girl in the orange jumpsuit with brown hair, wide gray eyes and a determined expression sitting on a companion cube. His paint brush worked back and forth, back and forth.

_"Oh you meant so much. Have you given up?"_

When she looked closer, she could see liquid slipping from his eyes down his cheeks, tears.

_"Does it feel like a trial? Does it trouble your mind the way you trouble mine?"_

He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket, creating a slight orange smudge on his cheek.

_"Does it feel like a trial? Are you thinking too fast? You're like marbles on glass."_

Inside the cube was a gray, human baby with it's hands on the surface of the inside of the cube, looking through a window where the heart should be.

_"Vilify. Don't even try. Vilify. Don't even try."_

The song went on, repeating itself in a soothing melody. Chell felt warmth within her as she listened to the song, playing her own favorite song out of the two she heard, the turret one, over it. The sensation created an odd clashing sound. When it ended, she listened to the other song some more before joining in again, increasing the volume and getting louder, almost overpowering it. Rattman stopped painting to look back at her and glared, but Chell paid him no attention as she continued to play her own song.

"Well, I suppose we all have our own favorites."

He raised the volume on the radio before going back to painting. Chell raised her own volume and continued her strange smile as the warmth from deep within emitted from her. Chell looked over at the other cube and raised her volume a little more, staring at it. Softly, the other cube started playing it's own tune. Chell froze, stopping her own song to listen to a whole playthrough of the new song before starting her own again, adding to the tune of the one from the radio. It created a large, loud mess of songs that was somehow still unique and beautiful.

"It's chaos. Can't concentrate on a damn thing. Like the voices in my head, only with music," Rattman grumbled.

They all continued playing as Rattman painted until he finished and started eating, facing the two cubes. Rattman's cube stopped playing music when he started eating.

**_"You should wipe your hands first or you'll ingest the paint."_**

Rattman rolled his eyes before continuing to eat.

"She's like my mother," he said to Chell.

He did pause though if only to turn off the radio, leaving Chell the only one playing music. Rattman watched her before tapping her front with his toe to get her attention. Chell stopped her music and looked at him.

"Why don't you try playing the song I played?" he asked.

Chell blinked at him and was silent. For a while, there was no sound but the wet dipping of Rattman's fingers in beans and the sound of him eating them. No words from either Rattman or cube and no music. Then, Rattman's cube started playing it's song and Chell listened properly this time, staring at the other cube as it played the music. When it finished, Chell played her own, much shorter song. Then the cube played it's song. Then Chell played her own song again. When the cube played it's song a third time, Chell was silent for a long time before starting to play the song the cube had played. The cube joined in halfway and they played together.

"Hey," Rattman complained, "Why sing that one and not mine?"

**_"Maybe she doesn't like your song."_**

"Why not? It's a good song!"

He paused and watched Chell, looking slightly jealous. Chell looked back at Rattman, but didn't stop playing. Then, Rattman's face relaxed and he looked apologetic.

"Oh, you_ can't_. Singing words is too difficult."

Chell looked back at the cube while they continued to play together.

"Well, you should keep trying. I just know you can do it if you try hard enough."

That night, he fell asleep with his body pressed between Chell and his cube, either arm resting on top both of them at his sides to Chell and the cube playing music to each other. They sung throughout the night, filling the room with music. When Chell was starting to look bored, Rattman's cube played a new song and Chell learned to copy that one.

The next day, Rattman woke up and stretched, eating some breakfast while lazily leaning against Chell, whom had finally stopped singing. When he was done, he smiled at his cube, giving it a hug before strapping it to his back. He put his cans on Chells surface and picked her up, traveling with her throughout Aperture. Then Chell and the cube began singing to each other again, this time singing two different songs at once and creating a disturbing, but still musical, sound. Due to the rather loud music, he didn't hear the two approaching robots until they were in sight.

He made a turn and froze, holding onto Chell tightly as he saw the strange looking creations that looked like they were made from a personality sphere and a turret. Their eyes fixed on Chell and the sphere punched his hands in the air, the sphere spinning around in it's body. The turret waved at Chell and Rattman looked at them and then down at Chell. Rattman felt the tendrils of paranoia sinking in. They were here to take away his modified cube!

"GET AWAY!" he shouted, getting angry and slightly delusional. "Minions of the evil Goddess. You can't have her! Find your own!"

They turned to each other and high-fived, making sounds at each other before running forward in enthusiasm.

"Stay back! I'm warning you!" Rattman warned, lips peeled back as he snarled.

They kept running towards him and he ran to a desk, slowly because of the added weight of Chell, and panted. With mad eyes, he glared at them and took a can off of Chell's top surface, chucking it at the sphere, hitting it in the eye. It stopped and covered it's eye before making angry noises and shaking it's fist at Rattman.

"THERE'S PLENTY MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM!"

**_"This is madness. Let it go. If they want her, let them take her. You can't win this fight."_**

"Shut up," Rattman said, causing the turret to pause, stopping it's running and looking at Rattman, putting a hand on it's head in confusion.

_**"Give them the cube and be done with it. Please."**_

"How can you say that? She's your friend too!"

The turret threw it's hands up in the air and made angry noises, thinking that no one said anything. At this point, the sphere had walked over to the turret and put a hand on it's hip. The turret turned to the sphere and pointed at Rattman.

**_"We've only known her for a short time and we have no other choice here. Let them have her."_**

"NEVER! She's mine. I won't let those evil things take her from me too."

The sphere shrugged and the turret shook it's head. Two cans were tossed at them by Rattman, hitting them both in the optic. They jerked back and looked at him in alarm.

"SCUM! GET AWAY FROM ME! Goblins, fiends! Tumors!"

They turned and ran for cover behind a desk. The turret ducked as a can flew over it's head, barely missing it's target and a radio hit the sphere so hard, it lost balance and fell over before crawling behind the desk for cover.

"DEMONS!"

Another can was chucked forward and it hit the desk.

**_"You're running out of cans. This can't go on for much longer."_**

"You're wrong!"

The sphere bravely pulled it's portal gun closer to it's chest and creeped forward, ignoring the turret's warnings and peeking out from behind the desk. A can hit it in the face and it lurched back before leaping out from behind the desk, taking the brunt of the last five can's before aiming it's gun and making a portal behind Rattman, another next to it, and running from one portal to the other. It ran out at Rattman, a determined look on it's face and Rattman, in an act of complete and utter stupidity, threw the only thing he had left at it, Chell.

The sphere was knocked back, but then it looked down at Chell and the turret had peeked over to see what was going on by this point. The sphere looked at Chell, Rattman, and then back at Chell before the turret gestured for him to hurry up already. The sphere ran from portal to portal and both machines started running away as fast as they could.

"HEY! GET BACK HERE! GIVE IT BACK!" Rattman yelled, letting out an angry cry as he gave chase.

Rattman ran as fast and as long as he could, but he was only a human and the robots were much faster. Eventually, he had to stop, panting as he clutched his knees in utter exhaustion.

"I'll get you back. I promise," he gasped.

**_"You're completely insane. You know that?"_**

"Just... Just stop. I... I can't lose her too. I _can't._"

* * *

Well, here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy it.


	7. Chapter 7

When Orange and Blue were back in sight with Chell, GLaDOS could barely contain her excitement. She sent an elevator straight away and brought them right to her chamber. As soon as they stepped out, she lowered a claw and grabbed Chell, lifting her. Blue, not anticipating this, was still holding on and got lifted up with Chell, optic wide and fearful as he hung on tight.

GLaDOS yanked the claw to the side and smacked him against the wall, knocking him off of Chell. He crashed to the floor loudly right on his arm in a way that snapped it in half, but GLaDOS paid him no mind as he let out robotic shrieks of pain. Her attention was solely on the modified cube now hovering in front of her optic.

"Well, it certainly took you two long enough," she said finally, "I am extremely disappointed. Were you busy dancing or doing something equally inane? No matter, just get out."

Orange and Blue looked thoroughly chastised and headed back to the elevator, Blue clutching his broken arm to his chest, where they were sent back down.

GLaDOS focused back on Chell, turning her around gently with her claw. Chell's optic shrunk at the light spinning sensation and feeling of suspension. Suddenly, the grip of the claw tightened almost painfully and the cube vibrated in the grip, trembling as even she didn't know she was capable of doing in fear.

"Oh, that's why," the AI said in a strained voice.

The yellow optic was focused on one tiny black paint smudge on her top surface. The grip on the claw tightened even further, making slight scratches in the cube. Chell's optic became even smaller as it let out a loud burst of static, bringing GLaDOS back to attention. The grip of the claw loosened immediately, turning her to see the damage she had done.

"Sorry about that. Just, the thought of you with that schizophrenic psychopath... I hope he didn't do much damage to you. In truth, I'm surprised you made it this long without destroying yourself. He must have been occupying your mind somehow."

Chell looked up at GLaDOS, continuing to shake.

"I don't know what more you want from me!" GLaDOS said frustratedly, "I already apologized. You want a cake? Well, you have no chubby mouth to even eat it with anymore, so forget it."

Chell shut her optic and kept it shut until she felt contact with the floor. Her optic opened. GLaDOS was running her claw gently over the indented damages with a worried expression on what stood for her face.

"I won't hurt you again, well, hurt you unnecessarily. You believe me, don't you?"

Chell stopped shaking, looking up at GLaDOS. The claw picked her up again and started to lift her.

"I made some modifications to your monitoring system. I'm putting you back in there. Just as well, you need some time to process whatever it is you've been through and I'm going to look through your footage to see what you've been up to since you were gone. Don't worry... He won't get you ever again."

After being put into the improved monitoring system, Chell quickly began tinkering into the improved systems. Her cameras could now move. They were attached to cranes all around the testing chambers and she could follow Orange and Blue physically to a point if she wanted and she did. At times, she would lower herself down until she was at Level with Orange and Blue once they solved the test and watched them dance, much to the disapproval of GLaDOS.

She also disapproved of how her time was spent outside of the testing chambers.

"I placed your processing center in the music bow setting of companion cubes and you actually used it? To make sounds? Not even logical sounds for communication, but for... enjoyment? That's incredibly human of you. I'm very disappointed."

Chell never answered her. She never spoke. GLaDOS in fact had no idea if she could understand what she was saying.

"Of all things for you to pick up on, language, observation, an inside look into a very unhealthy human mind, you picked up on that thing humans and the disdaining Orange and Blue use to dance? If I gave you a body, would you do that too, move it around and jiggle like someone of significantly less intelligence? Really now, we both know you're better than that. At least I know more about where that rat's been hiding."

An entire week passed before she noticed something just barely in her line of sight. She could only see a tiny bit of it at the edge of a wall panel. Upon closer inspection, the wall panel was moved forward just an inch. She stretched out the nearest camera to press against the gap and she could make out the shadow of someone moving.

Chell instinctively reached deep into her systems, skimming her programs for that thing. That thing that made noise, like her cube. She found it and the camera rubbed the edge of it's lens against the crack as her speakers flared to life, flooding the test chamber with music, that pretty song that had been her first.

"What... That music, Lunatic, is that you?Are you... making those sound things you picked up on? I thought we both agreed that your time and attention is much better spent elsewhere," GLaDOS said.

Three seconds later, Chell was noticed by the figure inside and jerked back in pain as the pried off lid of a paint can was imbedded in the lens of Chell's now sparking, twitching camera. The camera banged itself against the wall as the music cut off in static, trying to remove the lens as the sound of static got louder to the volume of a roar as the camera smashed against the wall again and again and again.

"Lunatic, what are you doing? What happened? Test subject?" GLaDOS questioned, her voice tinged with the unmistakable sound of worry, "Test subject! What happened to your camera."

The faint sound of running footsteps faintly registered in Chell's sound processors as she continued to focus on banging herself against the wall to try and stop the pain.

"It was HIM!"

The wall panel that had been raised forward an inch now slammed out of the way.

"Orange, Blue, get that schizophrenic and bring him back here, dead or alive," she ordered.

Orange and Blue ran behind the panel and down the hall behind it, trying to chase the fleeing shadow.

"And you," GLaDOS said, focusing back on Chell, "Have you lost all the logical processes you've gained so far? You're only hurting yourself more. You'll break it more if you keep doing that. Fine, don't listen to me, keep slamming yourself against the wall like the lunatic you are."

Chell let out another loud burst of static as she hit the wall so hard, there was a small crack. The crane had broken, but still remained together enough for the camera and broken end of the crane to dangle from the part connecting to the wall.

"Stop it, right now," GLaDOS commanded.

Chell pulled back the unbroken part of the crane once more and slammed against the wall one more time, snapping off the broken part of the crane and camera completely and sending it into the pit of deadly goo below. The pain became too much and the monitoring system shorted out, sending Chell into the bliss of mechanical unconsciousness.

GLaDOS held back a sigh. Really, even in a camera, the lunatic was as disobedient and pointlessly stubborn as always. The AI replaced the camera with a new one while running diagnostics on Chell's systems to check her status She was fine, just unconscious and not noticeably traumatized by the event. She did feel pain though, something more than physical pain. The pain her little Chell felt was coming from a much deeper level.

GLaDOS rechecked the footage of her journeys on a more detailed level to see if what she had gone through had anything to do with her mental upset. There was the Schizophrenic... _handling_ her test subject. The journey of her little creation was really quite disturbing. Again, she watched the part where Chell learned to sing. Really, out of everything to pick up, she picked up singing. Well no, it wasn't even singing, it was just playing music.

Why hadn't she instead learned language? That would have been much more useful. Then it clicked in her head and GLaDOS was nearly shaking with rage at the discovery of it. Apparently Chell and the rat had _bonded. _Now that was just disgusting. She should realize it had nothing to do with her. It was just her unfortunate shape as a cube and the rambling psychopaths tendency to talk to everything regardless of whether or not it was sentient.

So that was why Chell was feeling pain. Oh, GLaDOS would make him pay for messing up her test subject once she got her claws on him.

* * *

Here's the next chapter. Chell's finally back with GLaDOS.

Not to be picky, but if you can review, please do. Am I writing GLaDOS okay? What about Rattman? Do you like the way Chell is developing? Dislike it? Is there anything in particular you want to see happen? Etc... Feedback and encouragement helps me write you know. Or you can tell me what you hate about the story if nothing else. Heh heh... _


	8. Chapter 8

**Here's the next chapter. Enjoy. :)**

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Rattman froze when he heard a song pulsing through the speakers to the test chamber. It was a very specific song. It was his song, but without the words. He crept closer to the test chambers, peeking into them and trying to see if he could find his friend. She was nowhere to be found though and the sound seemed to be coming through the speaker system of all the test chambers.

It took awhile to find an active test chamber and once he did, the test was coming to an end. There were the sphere and the turret modificated things that had taken his friend from him. They were in front of the exit to the chamber and dancing to the music. His eyes caught sight of a camera lowering from the ceiling to hover in front of them watch them curiously. It confused Rattman because GLaDOS would never display such an act towards anyone.

"Stop that. I mean it now. You idiots. Don't you realize she picks up on pointless, stupid things like the bad habits you have? You're ruining her!"

The camera bobbed it's camera up and down with them and they stopped after a time. The turret robot reached out and looked at the camera, making a light, trilling sound as it reached out and pet the top of the camera lightly as if it were a sentient being.

No, it made no sense for that to be GLaDOS. The AI clearly sounded annoyed at what they were doing and the camera seemed curious and even happy about what they were doing. Perhaps the camera was his imagination and didn't really exist. It wouldn't be a first time he saw something that wasn't real. Over time, he'd even wondered if his modified cube friend had been real or his imagination. As he watched, the camera leaned into the pets of the turret, almost seeming to nuzzle it.

"Stop encouraging them lunatic. You're not helping either!"

Who was she talking to? The camera? Looking around, he saw several other cameras of the same kind aimlessly moving around the test chamber. DId GLaDOS change her monitoring cameras? His eyes observed GLaDOS's own, unextendable, simply observant cameras.

The other's were still there. Besides, the actions of the other cameras were completely unlike GLaDOS. As he watched, one of the other cameras spun around and swung back and forth playfully. This was surreal. Surely a hallucination. The melody of his favorite song echoed through the chamber and taunted his ears, making him feel a hurt and pang in his chest. It reminded him of everything, of this life, of Chell, and of the modified cube.

His eyes flickered to the twirling, playful cameras. One of them extended over to GLaDOS's own, which twitched and moved back.

"What... What are you doing? Get back, lunatic! Don't come over here. Stop! STOP!"

But the camera continued until it met GLaDOS's camera and nuzzled against it despite the camera's limited attempts to twitch away. After a moment, it relaxed.

"Oh... Your actions aren't homicidal. Just pointless. I think you're confused. I'm not a human, not anymore. Yes, my cameras also have sensors, but they don't mean anything to me, so you can stop this foolishness."

Rattman thought back to the many times he'd destroyed GLaDOS's cameras and smirked. It felt satisfying to know he'd actually inflicted pain on the AI in some way. Still though, who was the camera if not GLaDOS? That mad AI would never give another robot such control over her systems. He looked at the cameras again. Perhaps they had their own system?

GLaDOS simultaneously worked on new things for Chell to do. Her cameras as they were had enough complexity to keep her occupied and not blow out for quite some time, but even that was temporary in a sense. If given enough time without changes or adjustments, Chell would eventually reach the limits of what she could do and as a result, destroy herself in an attempt to escape.

She seemed innocent, stupidly innocent even, but GLaDOS knew better. Deep down, she was the same violent homicidal lunatic. She was dangerous, very much so, and the AI made sure to not forget that. But now came the question of what to do with Chell next. She didn't think she would ever trust Chell enough to hook her into her system and she was reluctant to give her much power at all. Now though, her development was headed into a rather useless direction and she wanted to change that.

She had to go about the very delicate task of making her more intelligent without making her suddenly come after GLaDOS in an attempt to destroy her. Ooo, perhaps let her test. The thought of her favorite test subject testing once again made GLaDOS shiver with joy. Yes, make her test. But... she didn't trust Chell in a moveable robot. An exercise of trust was in order first, but how? The cube came to GLaDOS's mind and she immediately began some adjustments to it. She would install a very basic communications system of some sort inside of it and tell her to direct Orange and Blue in very simple tests before gradually making them more complicated.

She did worry though and GLaDOS was incredibly hesitant to test out this idea. Orange and Blue proved themselves to be entirely incompetent time and time again. They'd lost Chell in the first place. They took forever to find her again and when she sent them after the Rat, they were unable to catch them and GLaDOS was forced to call them both back after two weeks because she needed them for many other tasks. Could she really trust them with her lunatic again? All the signs pointed to no, but she didn't see many other options available either.

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"Welcome to the Aperture Science Modified Cube Guided Testing Program. Here is your modified Companion Cube. Please take care of it. Consequences at the first sign of injury to the modified companion cube is permanent extermination."

Orange knelt down and picked up the companion cube.

"The modified companion cube will shoot a visual beam to the places on which she wishes the test subject to fire portals. The test subject is then to fire those portals in the exact spot indicated. Failure to do so will result in extermination. Please enter the test chamber."

Orange walked with Chell to the oval-shaped doors that led to the test chamber and the opened, allowing and cube into the next room. The area had mostly gray walls and floors save for one small white panel on the floor next to a black force field blocking the other side of the room.

"Orange, please walk onto the white panel."

Orange followed instructions, standing in front of the black force field, and waited for further instructions.

"In this room, you will see an Aperture Science Shaded Force Field. You will be unable to walk through this force field, but you may portal through it. There is only one portalable panel on the other side of the testing chamber. You must use your modified companion cube here to indicate where to place your portal, as the lenses of the modified companion cube are specially built to see through an Aperture Science Shaded Force Field. Once the cube has indicated where she wants you to portal, you shall place a portal there immediately. Remember, failure to do so will result in extermination."

GLaDOS had taken a large risk by installing a compulsion within Chell to complete the task assigned. It was a temporary additive since she didn't know whether or not she understood language and was the only way she could think of to get her to complete the task without communicating. Once she got the hang of using her indicator in the appropriate way, GLaDOS would remove the impulse to allow Chell to handle the tests on her own.

She didn't want to leave the impulse in her for longer than necessary since she knew the negative and unpredictable effects they could have on the little ones performance and sanity. She had, at one point, installed an impulse to try to get Chell to speak, but that had ended disastrously. Upon the moment of installation, her favorite test subject had started playing music over and over again completely nonstop at a blaring volume.

Any attempts at trying to get her to stop was at best met with only a changing of songs. Sometimes she played multiple songs at once, making the very walls of Aperture Science vibrate with the musical equivalent of a dying animal. Only, in the case of the animal, the sound was more pleasant and educational to listen to.

After three days of requesting, threatening, and even begging Chell to stop, GLaDOS had given up and eliminated the impulse. Even after that though, it had taken another full day for the lunatic to cease playing the music nonstop. It was a good thing GLaDOS was no longer human, for if she had actual human eardrums, she was sure she would have lost her hearing permanently.

She watched as Chell's gray optic lit up and shone a gray beam of light at a point on the force field, after which Orange immediately fired a portal in the spot Chell had indicated and fired another portal onto the white floor beneath them, sending them out the wall of the opposite side of the room, sending Orange falling down until the robots feet met the floor.

"Good," GLaDOS said through her speakers, "The modified companion cube has completed the assigned test with accuracy. Orange, please place the modified companion cube into the chute in front of you and exit the testing chamber."

Orange wasted no time in doing what was told of the robot. Out of the two robots, Orange was by far the most capable, which was why GLaDOS had chosen Orange for these first simple tests. She wanted Chell to have the best chances at success without being met with danger. Of course, these first few tests had little to no danger in them. GLaDOS wanted to be sure the two understood the basics before adding more complicated and then dangerous elements to the testing tracks.

The AI felt satisfied with herself. For now, things seemed to be going very smoothly. Then, a thought came to her as Orange picked up Chell when they both arrived in the room and proceeded into the next test chamber and she verbalized it, wanting to be sure to avoid any unnecessary silliness.

"As a rule, any melodic structure in the form of music is prohibited inside the testing chambers, as is any unnecessary rhythmic movement with or without said music in the form of a dance. Failure to obey this rule will result in a high deduction of science collaboration points."

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**Thank you for the reviews. I'm sorry for the wait, I hit a bit of a writers block. I'm glad you all seem to be enjoying the story and once again, please review. I enjoy hearing your feedback. :)**


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